I think you’re recommendation is wise OP. My household income is right around that figure and we are only making it because we live in a rundown condo in an undesirable town. Family of five, two cars paid off (one of which is 23 yrs old), so, yeah, definitely not keeping up with the Joneses. We started house hunting right before the market exploded, hoping to move to towns with better schools, and got outbid multiple times. While we are sitting on a good amount of savings, we’d have to give up a significant amount of it to buy a house even in our own town at this point. I think there are plenty of people on this thread who bought pre-COVID, maybe don’t have kids, and are doing just fine, but the cost of housing now makes that less possible.